Band:	Accept
Album:	Balls To The Wall
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	December 05, 1983
Guest review by:	The Massenger

01. Balls To The Wall
02. London Leatherboys
03. Fight It Back
04. Head Over Heels
05. Losing More Than You've Ever Had
06. Love Child
07. Turn Me On
08. Losers And Winners
09. Guardian Of The Night
10. Winter Dreams
11. Head Over Heels [live] [Remastered Edition bonus]
12. Love Child [live] [Remastered Edition bonus]

Maybe when talking about the heavy metal genre our minds automatically remember England in the early '70s with Black Sabbath and in the early '80s with Iron Maiden and NWOBHM, but Germany has always introduced skilled bands to us. I don't want to remind you of the world wars and the general sense of competitiveness between these two countries, but for me, Germany was never less than England in heavy metal, and was the birthplace of one of the oldest and best bands in the genre. The famous, elder band Accept comes from Germany, a band with nearly fifty years of history in heavy metal music; we know well that Accept formed in 1968, first under the name of Band X, and except for a short time in the '90s leading up to its disbandment, always showed the highest quality of heavy metal. Maybe one of the reasons why the band waned after its golden age in the '80s, when they released unique albums like Breaker, Restless And Wild, and Metal Heart, was that the band changed styles to glam metal and released a frustrating album entitled Eat The Heat.

Balls To The Wall was the fifth album by this persistent band, released in 1983 - one of the best eras of heavy metal, when Iron Maiden released The Number Of The Beast, Judas Priest released Screaming For Vengeance, and Motörhead released Another Perfect Day. In this age, Accept released three successive albums that enabled the band to successfully establish a name for itself. That name was still unknown amongst the leaders of that time, but these metalheads from Dusseldorf showed that, even if they weren't better than the best, they were certainly none the lesser.

The album's first track, "Balls To The Wall," takes its name from the album itself, and demonstrates for all that Accept and Accept! Herman Frank's rough-and-tumble riffs begin the songs with Kaufmann's drums, promising to every listener an album full of heat and the strong arm of heavy metal from the beginning. Balls To The Wall is pure heavy metal, the result of much effort and enthusiasm on the part of the German men, and since the first time it was played its songs have left their hidden power impressed upon all ears. The penetrating sound of the rough Deutsch man Udo at full power shows on all tracks, but that's not the only thing you should hear from him; the album's last tracks step down the heaviness and we hear deeper vocals, especially at the very end with "Winterdreams."

Balls To The Wall is a masterpiece of its age in terms of unique guitar soloing and the melodies of the golden-fingered man Wolf Hoffmann, who in his own genre was one of the best guitarists of all time. But how could we forget the role of the bass guitar in this album? The bass lines of Peter Baltes at every point of this album, in addition to filling the pores with sound, shift new rhythms and with wondrous solos creates the cornerstone of all instrumental sounds.

Finally, it may be a disadvantage that the work of these heavy metallers from Dusseldorf is very difficult, but Balls To The Wall will never get old; it will stay an immortal album and the source of inspiration for all metal bands. This is true metal music.

Accept German heavy metal?